This proposal requests for partial support of registration costs for participating undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members to attend the 2012 Midwest Thermodynamic and Statistical Mechanics (MTSM) conference, to be held on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota, May 20-22, 2012. This conference has drawn attendees from all over the United States.
The Midwest Thermodynamic and Statistical Mechanics (MTSM) Conference will likely continue the longstanding tradition of promoting research and collaborations in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics as participants take advantage of the small attendance (approximately 80 people) to establish contacts in the community. This conference will be a venue where the latest research on computational, theoretical and experimental thermodynamics and statistical mechanics are presented, discussed and debated. Thermodynamics is a major pillar of scientific and engineering disciplines. Statistical mechanics provides an additional, necessary molecular understanding of thermodynamic properties. The MTSM Conference provides a great vehicle to learn thermodynamics in the context of statistical mechanics.
Broader Impacts:
The meeting participants range from established senior faculty members to undergraduate and new graduate students. An attractive feature of MTSM is its focus on graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members. By design, the majority of presentations are given by young scientists and engineers. These meetings are wonderful learning experiences for young researchers. As done in the past, the organizers will attempt to keep the costs at a minimum for students to encourage participation. This proposal, combined with funds committed by the University of Minnesota?s College of Science and Engineering, the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute and the Digital Technology Center, will provide funding to help defray meeting expenses.
. This was the 23rd time this conference was held since 1988. MTSM meetings are regular events, drawing students and faculty together from all over the Midwest (and beyond) to discuss their latest work in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics in an informal and focused atmosphere. Historically, the conference has provided a forum for researchers in all aspects of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, whether it be theoretical or experimental, to come together and present their work. Most participants are in chemical engineering and chemistry, although students and faculty from physics and materials science have also participated. The meeting has tended to emphasize theoretical and computational aspects of the field in recent years, not by design but instead by the interests of the active participants. NSF-ENG Chemical and Transport Systems / CBET has been able to support this conference several times in the past. A distinctive feature of MTSM is its focus on graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty. The overwhelming majority of the contributed talks are given by either graduate students or, less often, by postdoctoral fellows. There are typically two to four longer invited talks given by junior faculty members. The meetings are open to anyone, and have drawn contributed talks from researchers with home institutions in more than half of the 50 states as well as from industry and national laboratories. Most attendees are from academic institutions in the Midwest region, however, which has a large concentration of researchers working in the thermodynamics and statistical mechanics areas. Because the meetings are regional and other costs are kept to a minimum (see below), faculty members are often able to travel with their entire group to the meeting. This provides a unique experience where students can participate in intense discussions of their research. It also serves to strengthen research ties and collaborations among participants; there are many examples of joint research projects being established as a result of interactions that have taken place at MTSM meetings, and graduate students often take postdoctoral positions in labs of other participating faculty, in part because of relationships developed at these meetings. Finally, being able to travel to a meeting as an entire group helps establish an important camaraderie among senior and junior members of the different research groups, which is vital to the health of a research program.
